Forge at Holy Hill House, 78 Ballee Road, Artigarvan, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, BT82 0AA

Former Forge, Holy Hill House Estate, Artigarvan, near Strabane, Co. Tyrone

This is a single-storey, single-bay, lean-to former forge dating from around 1810, forming part of the extensive farm complex attached to Holy Hill House, a country house with demesne situated to the north-east of Strabane. The building is square on plan and attached at the southern end of the farmyard, abutting the laundry building. It is a vernacular outbuilding of modest proportions that has been well maintained, though with some alteration.

The monopitched roof is covered in diminishing natural slate. Rising from the north-west corner of the building, which is thickened to form a pier, is a brick bellcote topped with a masonry mantle and complete with bell. A rendered chimney stack sits directly behind the bellcote. The walls are of rubble stone construction, limewashed white with a contrasting base course. The entrance elevation faces north and features a painted tongue-and-groove sheeted door with a metal-framed lattice-glazed window to its left, set on a masonry sill. The remaining elevations are blank. The east elevation shows exposed concrete breeze block where a neighbouring building has since been removed. There are no rainwater goods.

To the south of the building is a lawned area enclosed by rubble stone walling. The building and its associated outbuildings sit within an established demesne of lawns, mature parkland, and farmland on undulating ground to the north-east of Strabane.

The forge does not appear in any primary records by name, but is likely to have been an early addition to the estate's facilities. It is, however, shown on all three editions of the Ordnance Survey map (1833, 1854, and 1905). Griffith's Valuation lists a range of outbuildings across those survey periods, including two dairies, a granary house, a coach house, a fowl house, a boiler shed, two stables, a shed, a cow house, and two offices, though the forge is not specifically identified among them.

The Holy Hill estate has Plantation origins. It was likely cultivated and enlarged in the 1730s and 1760s under John Sinclair, who owned it from 1718 to 1770. John Sinclair commissioned William Starrat in 1736 to draw up a map of the estate, though this omitted all buildings. His son George, who owned the estate from 1770 to 1804 and had trained as a linen merchant, further cultivated it and likely established a mill after 1779. An estate map in the Abercorn papers dated 1804 captions the property as "Holly Hill George Sinclair Esq." but again shows no buildings. Under George's nephew James, a Justice of the Peace who owned the estate from 1804 to 1865, it was greatly developed: many estate buildings were erected during this period, including the walled garden, and it is to this phase that the farm complex most plausibly belongs. James's son William, a former High Sheriff of Co. Donegal in 1854 who became Deputy Lieutenant of Tyrone in 1876, also likely made improvements before his death in 1896, after which no significant further works are thought to have been undertaken.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs are notably enthusiastic in their praise of James Sinclair, describing him as "the only resident proprietor" in the parish of Leckpatrick, and commending his "skill in every department of agriculture [which] enabled him to suggest the most effectual means of improvement, whilst his liberality induced him to supply in a great measure the means. The woods of Holyhill yielded timber for [his tenants'] houses and farming implements and its nurseries provided quicks and trees for their gardens and fences, to ask for which was as great a source of satisfaction to the donor as to receive it would have been to others. It would afford a good practical lesson to many of our proprietors to visit these newly formed farms." From inspection, the farmyard appears to have been largely built in a single phase, with some later additions. The vernacular character of the buildings makes precise dating difficult, but their appearance is consistent with an early 19th-century date, supported by the historical record of James Sinclair's improvements from 1804 onwards.

The forge has group value with the other listed buildings across the Holy Hill estate, and together with the adjoining walling makes a positive contribution to the demesne as a whole. The outbuildings as a group reflect the operational requirements of running a large country estate.